Raynham parish opens new addition

Tuesday

RAYNHAM — After nine months of construction, the wait is over for the First Congregational Church’s eager members, who opened the house of worship’s brand new addition Sunday.

After nine months of construction, the wait is over for the First Congregational Church’s eager members, who opened the house of worship’s brand new addition Sunday.

“The congregation has waited a long time for this to happen,” said the pastor, the Rev. James Tilbe. “I’ve been in Raynham for 16 years, and I believe they’ve talked about it long before that.”
A longtime local landmark, the First Congregational Church, known to many as the Stone Church, now has a new parish hall, offices, nursery and kitchen.

“The largest part of the addition is a new parish hall,” Tilbe said. “It also makes the building handicapped accessible.”

Plans for the $900,000 expansion started to be drawn up in 2000, a year after the late William and Dorothy Kenney bequeathed a large sum of money to the church.

“That provided some start-up money for this,” the pastor said.

The church then collected many donations, mainly from the congregation, to fund the remainder of the construction project’s cost, an estimated $300,000.

The congregation was thrilled to see the new addition open Sunday, Tilbe said.

Even though the new project was just completed, the pastor is already thinking ahead to potential future improvements.

“At some point — it won’t happen right away — we plan to enlarge the sanctuary,” he said. “In the old stone part of the church, probably two-thirds is taken up by the sanctuary.”

Although the current First Congregational Church is known as the Stone Church, the original building was a wooden structure built in 1832. After a fire destroyed the church in 1912, the familiar stone building was erected to replace it.

gtuoti@tauntongazette.com

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